She saw a smile spread over Rasalom's face and knew she was responding just as he had hoped—retreating from his final threat, edging ever closer to the gateway. She tried to stop, to will her legs to be still, but they kept backing her away from the rats.
Dark stone walls closed around her—she was back within the gate arch. Another yard or two and she would be over the threshold ... and Rasalom would be set loose upon the world.
Magda closed her eyes and stopped moving.
This far will I go, she told herself. This far and no farther ... this far and no farther... repeating it over and over in her mind—until something brushed her ankle and skittered away. Something small and furry. Another. Then another. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. The hilt wasn't working! The rats were attacking her! They'd be all over her soon.
In a panic, she opened her eyes. Rasalom was closer now, his depthless eyes fixed on her through the misty half-light, his legion of the dead fanned out behind him, and the rats massed before him. He was driving the rats forward, forcing them against her feet and ankles. Magda knew she was going to break and run any second now ... she could feel the overpowering terror welling up inside her, ready to drown and wash away all her resolve ... the hilt isn't protecting me! She started to turn and then stopped. The rats were brushing against her, but they didn't bite or claw her. They made contact and then ran. It was the hilt! Because she held the hilt, Rasalom lost control over the rats as soon as they touched her. Magda took heart and calmed herself.
They can't bite me. They can't touch me for more than an instant. Her greatest horror had been that they might crawl up her legs. Now she knew they could not. She stood firm again.
Rasalom must have sensed this. He scowled and made a motion with his hands.
The corpses again began to move. They parted around him, then rejoined into a near-solid moving wall of dead flesh, scuffling, stumbling forward, crowding up to where she stood, stopping within inches of her. They gaped at her with slack, expressionless faces and glazed, empty eyes. There was no malevolence in their movements, no hatred, no real purpose. They were merely dead flesh. But they were so close! Had they been alive, their breath would have wafted against her face. As it was, a few of them smelled as if they had already begun to putrefy.
She closed her eyes again, fighting the loathing that weakened her knees, hugging the hilt against her.
... this far and no farther... this far and no farther ... for Glaeken, for me, for what's left of Papa, for everyone... this far and no farther...
Something heavy and cold slumped against her. She staggered back, crying out in surprise and disgust. The corpses nearest her had begun to go limp and fall against her. Another one slammed into her and she was rocked back again. She twisted to the side and let its slack bulk slip by her. Magda realized what Rasalom was doing—if he couldn't frighten her out of the keep, then he would push her out by hurling the physical bulk of his dead army against her. He was succeeding. There were only inches left to her.
As more corpses pressed forward, Magda made a desperate move. She grasped the gold handle of the hilt firmly with both hands and swung it out in a wide arc, dragging it against the dead flesh of those closest to her.
Bright flashes of light and sizzling noises erupted upon contact with the bodies; wisps of acrid, yellow-white smoke stung her nostrils ... and the corpses—they jerked spasmodically and fell away like marionettes with severed strings. She stepped forward, waving the hilt again, this time in a wider arc, and again the flashes, the sizzle, the sudden limpness.
Even Rasalom retreated a step.
Magda allowed a small, grim smile to touch her lips. Now at least she had breathing room. She had a weapon and she was learning how to use it. She saw Rasalom's gaze shift to her left and looked to see what had caught his attention.
Papa! He had regained consciousness and was on his feet, leaning against the wall of the gateway arch. It sickened Magda to see the thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face—blood from the blow she had struck.
"You!" Rasalom said, pointing to Papa. "Take the talisman from her! She has joined our enemies!"
Magda saw her father shake his head, and her heart leaped with new hope.
No!" Papa's voice was a feeble croak, yet it echoed off the stone walls around them. "I've been watching! If what she holds is truly the source of your power, you do not need me to reclaim it. Take it yourself!"
Magda knew she had never been so proud of her father as at that moment when he stood up to the creature who had tried to plunder his soul. And had come so close to succeeding. She brushed away tears and smiled, taking strength from Papa and giving it back to him.
"Ingrate!" Rasalom hissed, his face contorted with rage. "You've failed me! Very well, then—welcome back your illness! Revel in your pain!"
Papa slumped to his knees with a stifled moan. He held his hands before him, watching them turn white and lock once again into the gnarled deformity that until yesterday had rendered them useless. His spine curved and he crumpled forward with a groan. Slowly, with agony seeping from every pore, his body curled in on itself. When it was over he lay whimpering in a twisted, tortured parody of the fetal position.
Magda stepped toward him, shouting through her horror. "Papa!" She could almost feel his pain herself.
Yet he suffered through it all with no plea for mercy. This seemed to incite Rasalom further. Amid a chorus of shrill squeaks, the rats started forward, a dun wave that sluiced around Papa, then swept over him, tearing at him with tiny razor teeth.
Magda forgot her loathing and rushed to his side, batting at the rats with the hilt, swatting them away with her free hand. But for every few she swept away, more sets of tiny jaws darted in to redden themselves on Papa's flesh. She cried, she sobbed, she called out to God in every language she knew.
The only answer came from Rasalom, a taunting whisper behind her. "Throw the hilt through the gate and you will save him! Remove that thing from these walls and he lives!"
Magda forced herself to ignore him, but deep within she sensed that Rasalom had won. She could not let this horror go on—Papa was being eaten alive by vermin! And she seemed helpless to save him. She had lost. She would have to surrender.
But not yet. The rats were not biting her, only Papa.
She sprawled across her father, covering his body with her own, pressing the hilt between them.
"He will die!" the hated voice whispered. "He will die and there will be no one to blame but you! Your fault! All you—"
Rasalom's words suddenly broke off as his voice climbed to a screech—a sound full of rage, fear, and disbelief.
"YOU!"
Magda twisted her head upward and saw Glaeken—weak, pale, caked with dried blood, leaning against the keep's gate a few feet away. There was no one in the world she wanted more to see right now than him.
"I knew you would come."
But the way he looked, it seemed a miracle he had made it across the causeway. He could never stand up to Rasalom in his present condition.
And yet he was here. The sword blade was in one hand, the other he held out to her. No words were necessary. She knew what he had come for and knew what she must do. She lifted herself away from Papa and placed the hilt in Glaeken's hand.